


the still point of the sun

by straightforwardly



Category: Shall We Date?: THE NIFLHEIM+
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straightforwardly/pseuds/straightforwardly
Summary: An accident at Firelight Night leads to new revelations.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackOfNone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackOfNone/gifts).



The carriage slowly began to rattle to a halt. Isabella, who had let herself be swayed to drowsiness despite the constant jolts and bumps of the past hour, now opened her eyes and peered out of the curtained window with interest. 

The sky was dark, as it always was in Niflheim, and growing darker now as even the stars and moon began to dim. By the waning light she could see the inky motion of a large black lake and the faint outline of a prickly forest beyond. 

Across from her in the carriage sat J.J. and Skeletiano. Skeletiano had spoken very little during the trip, as he’d needed to focus on holding himself together as the roads grew rougher, but once the last clap of invisible hooves had faded he straightened up and followed her gaze outside of the window. 

“We’re here! —And just in time too.”

“Yes!” Isabella agreed. She could already feel the excitement burbling up in her chest. 

J.J. said nothing, but his eyes shone with interest.

The three of them had travelled to the Black Lake for a special event, one that took place at sporadic intervals— one that the citizens of Niflheim had taken to calling Firelight Night. 

For a single night the stars and moon would grow dark, lanterns and candles would extinguish and ghostly orbs lose their glow, and all light would leave Niflheim— except over the waters of the Black Lake. There mysterious lights gathered, flying in tandem with colonies of bats, forming figures and shapes that, according to Skeletiano, could tell one’s future. 

It had been well over two hundred years since the last Firelight Night. It was the Great Wizard who’d foreseen its return— which meant that within half an hour Skeletiano had learned of it too and had flown to invite Isabella to come with him to view the event. 

She’d happened to be speaking with J.J. at the time; naturally, he was intrigued by the research possibilities and so was invited to come along with them as well. (Skeletiano had protested, but Isabella knew that he was secretly pleased.)

And now they were here. 

They stepped out of the carriage. Their driver tipped his hat at them before collapsing into a pile of neatly folded paper, which then folded itself smaller and smaller, until it became a cube the size of Isabella’s palm. J.J. took it and tucked it away in one of his coat’s many pockets, while Isabella (and Skeletiano too, though he wouldn’t admit it) looked on in admiration. 

A boat waited for them at a small dock, just as Skeletiano had arranged. The dock was made of a dark wood and hard to see against the black water— or perhaps that was only the fading of the light. No one else appeared to be there; it seemed that word of the Great Wizard’s discovery hadn’t travelled far since the morning. 

Suddenly, Skeletiano snapped, “What are you doing, you stupid zombie?!”

Isabella turned just in time to see J.J. rise from a crouch, a large, capped flask of dark liquid in his hands. 

He blinked at Skeletiano in incomprehension. “Taking a sample,” he said as though it were obvious. “This lake has fascinating properties—”

“—Which is why you shouldn’t touch it! Do you _want_ to rot more than you already have?!”

“Of course not,” J.J. replied, his voice still mild. “That’s why I wore one of my newer inventions— Impenetrable Gloves.”

It was only as he said this that Isabella noticed that he wore a thick, scaly glove over the hand that held the flask. 

Isabella asked, “What’s wrong with the water?”

Skeletiano looked at her with horror. (Or, at least, she assumed that was what the sudden opening of his jaw and tensing of the rest of his bones meant.) “Didn’t I warn you?”

Isabella shook her head.

It then took some moment to calm Skeletiano’s anguished exclamations of how he was the worst of hosts, and guides, and friends! but eventually, she got her answer.

“Strange things happen to the people who touch the water here,” Skeletiano told her with a full-body shudder that sent his bones rattling. “Horrid, unexplainable things! We must be very careful!”

“Perhaps,” J.J. mused, half to himself, “the strange properties of the lake are related to why the lights appear here and nowhere else. If I could just get a sample…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Skeletiano’s pipe began smoking furiously. “The lights are pure carriers of truth; the lake is horrid and awful! They have nothing in common!”

But J.J., still muttering under his breath, wasn’t listening.  


* * *

  
They boarded the boat without any more problems or interruptions. It was a narrow but sturdy thing, with three equally narrow benches and two sets of oars. J.J. and Skeletiano each took one set, while Isabella took the seat in the middle. 

With the last of the fading light, they navigated their way to near the center of the lake. There they halted and waited as full dark descended. Isabella kept her eyes on the moon, the last true source of light, until it too vanished and they were left alone in the inky darkness.

She couldn’t see anything— not her two friends, not the boat she sat in, not even her hands in her lap when she bent her head to check. All there was, was the gentle sway of the boat, the hard press of the bench beneath her, the susurrus of the water, and J.J.’s and her own soft, unnecessary-but-habitual breathing. 

For an infinite, unknowable amount of time, her world shrank down to those four things— to the breath, the sway and ebb, the rough wood beneath. 

She felt rather than saw the beginning. A change, a shift in the air— something she’d never had noticed had she enough light to see. 

Then came the first point of red-orange light, so small that she could scarcely see it at all, emerging from the tangle of trees on the other side of the lake. Then came another, and then another, and then another, until there were hundreds and hundreds of small lights, all gathering in a ball above the tree line.

The lights hung there for a moment. Then the ball began to move in a pulsing motion towards the lake, and Isabella caught her breath as the individual lights began breaking away from the mass in thin lines to fill the sky above them. 

The lights crossed over one another, twisting and turning as Isabella stared up at the sky, open-mouthed in wonder. Despite what Skeletiano had assured earlier, she couldn’t make out any recognizable shapes out of the formations, but the spectacle of the lights were enough to assuage her twinge of regret.

As she thought this, her eyes were drawn to distinct corner of the sky where the lights had drawn together in a form like a ‘v’ upended, or the opening of a bird’s maw. It held there in place for a moment too long, as though it recognized her gaze upon it. Something about it burned into her mind, but she couldn’t think on it long before the lights broke apart and began to move anew.

The dancing of the lights began to slow, then grew faster as they spread out over the lake until Isabella couldn’t see the individual points of light at all, only the bright lines that zigged and zagged across the sky, coming ever lower.

Suddenly, J.J. stood up. The boat swayed violently; Isabella yelped in time with Skeletiano’s shriek and fell back against him— only to feel the solid weight of his skeleton scatter under her. 

She yelped again as she fell further, her cheek striking the side of the boat with the pain of a violent thud. She’d instinctively closed her eyes; now she opened them again and found herself looking over the edge of the boat at one of Skeletiano’s arm bones, already beginning to sink into the water. 

She didn’t think. She darted out her hand and snatched it up from the lake. 

Only then, as her hand dripped with lake water, did she remember Skeletiano’s warning.

“— were you _thinking_!” scolded Skeletiano’s skull, his voice echoing violently over the utterly still lake.

“Obtaining a sample,” replied J.J. calmly as he held out another, smaller vial, where one of the lights which had flown too low now resided. 

Skeletiano spluttered incoherently.

Neither seemed to notice what had happened. 

Only the last two fingers, a portion of her palm and middle finger, and the tips of the thumb and pointer finger on her left hand had gotten wet. There was no pain. As far as she could tell by the light of the dancing formations above, both Skeletiano’s bone and she herself seemed as they had been. 

Isabella discreetly wiped her hand dry on the folds of her skirt and said nothing.  


* * *

  
The rest of Firelight Night passed smoothly, as did the return back to the castle. By the time Isabella rose the next morning, she had nearly forgotten all about what had happened to her hand. It had given her no pain in all the hours that past. It was only as she brushed her hair that she saw it reflected in the mirror and thought on it at all. And even then, more of her attention was drawn to the slight twinge of pain from where her cheek had struck the side of the boat.

When she was finished with her hair, she ate some of the breakfast waiting for her. A knock sounded at the door, and she smoothed her hands over her skirts before going to open it. 

“Good morning, Princess,” Sunny said, her arms crossed. Isabella returned the greeting with enthusiasm and stepped back to allow her inside.

They sat down at the desk together for her lessons.

“Right,” said Sunny briskly. “I thought that today would be a good day to cover more geography, starting with the— Princess, _what happened to your hand_?”

Sunny’s eyes had gone wide. Isabella looked down at where she had folded her hands, left over right, in her lap. Now that Sunny had drawn attention to it, she noted that her hand _had_ started itching a bit where the water had come in contact with it. But it still looked as it ever had; she didn’t understand what had prompted the horror in Sunny’s voice.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Instead of responding, Sunny snatched up Isabella’s hand in both of her own. Her hands were cool with death. Gentle calluses pressed against Isabella’s smooth skin. 

Staring, Sunny ran her thumbs gently over the backs of Isabella’s fingers.

Isabella’s heart, normally unmoving in her chest, stuttered wildly. 

Sunny’s head jerked up. “What happened?” she demanded. Her fingers curled more tightly around Isabella’s own.

“What do you mean?” A pit of worry started to open up in her stomach— everything _seemed_ fine to her, but Sunny wasn’t the sort to be shaken up easily. If she thought something was wrong—

Maybe she shouldn’t have kept it a secret after all.

“You can’t see it?”

Isabella shook her head.

“But—” Sunny paused. “Princess, your hand… It’s there when I touch it, but when I look at it— it looks like _nothing_.”

Isabella blinked. “It’s invisible?”

Sunny shook her head. “No, I can see it. It’s just— endless. Like a void.” Another pause. “Are you sure nothing happened?”

Isabella averted her eyes and told her. There was a moment of cold heavy silence.

“That _stupid_ , useless pile of bones!” Sunny snapped, jerking to her feet. Isabella rose uncertainly after her.

“It’s not Skeletiano’s fault,” she said. “He _did_ warn me—”

“Please don’t defend him, Princess,” said Sunny tightly. “I’d like to give him a piece of my mind— but first, we need to get you to Mr. Rotten Zombie.”

“Not Victor?” Isabella asked, surprised. She’d thought that Sunny would have never turned down an opportunity to see him—

But, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen Sunny seek out Victor in months. And while Sunny had never stopped treating him with the sort of kindness she usually didn’t show others, she’d also stopped becoming so flustered around him.

Something warm rose in her chest.

“No,” said Sunny, clearly unaware of the trajectory of Isabella’s thoughts. “What did Skeletiano tell you about the Black Lake’s water?”

It took Isabella a moment to recollect herself. “Only that it does something strange if you touch it— but I don’t know what.”

Sunny nodded, her mouth a grim line. “Exactly. No one does. If we went to Victor, he couldn’t do anything for you. We don’t need a doctor— we need someone who can find out what happened.”  


* * *

  
They found J.J. in the lab at his home, already tinkering with the flask of water he’d taken from the lake. At least, Isabella assumed that was what he was doing— the flask sat at the table, while J.J. watched over black liquid bubbling in a pot over a burner. What looked like normal, clear water boiled in another pot besides it. He took some notes, but clumsily; his hands were covered in the bulky Impenetrable Gloves he’d worn the night before.

“Wake up, Mr. Rotten Zombie!” said Sunny as they entered without knocking. “We’ve got work for you to do.”

“Ooo, what are you doing?” asked Isabella at almost the same moment.

J.J. didn’t look up. For a moment, Isabella thought he wouldn’t react at all— getting J.J.’s attention when he was focused on a new project tended to be almost as difficult as trying to stop the king from hitting on every beautiful woman who crossed his path. 

Then he said, “Did you know water from the Black Lake both freezes and boils at the same temperature as regular water? It seems to be evaporating at the same rate as well… So far it looks like the composition is the same, so what causes the effect?”

“A better question is what heals it,” said Sunny, with a hint of impatience.

“Heals…?” J.J. blinked at his burners. “Yes, that would be a natural progression of my research. I need to find out what causes it, and then I’d need to find those who have been affected by it for testing—”

“Or, _you could help the Princess_.”

J.J. did look up at that. “The Princess?”

Isabella bit her lip, but stepped forward and held out her left hand for his appraisal. J.J.’s eyes widened, and he bent his head down for a closer look. As he did so, Isabella filled him in on what had happened. 

After a moment, he took her hand in his own as Sunny had and placed pressure on her fingers as if to ascertain that they were truly still there, before letting go again. 

“Interesting,” he said. “Has the effect spread any since last night? What does it feel like?”

Isabella flexed her fingers. “I— I don’t think so. It feels normal.”

Just then, a hissing sound filled the air. As one, they turned, and watched the black water boil over the pot.

“Ah,” said J.J. after a moment’s silence. “I’ll need to be more careful with the rest of my sample.”  


* * *

  
They settled down to waiting. Isabella thought briefly about suggesting they come back later, but a single glance at Sunny told her she would never agree to it— and besides, she’d always found it fascinating to watch J.J. at work. They sat down together on the ratty, overstuffed sofa J.J. had shoved into a corner of his lab (and that Isabella suspected he probably slept on more often than his actual bed). There wasn’t much room; one end of the sofa was filled with the remains of some half-finished invention. They squeezed in together, and the cool, soft line of Sunny’s body pressed against her side. 

Isabella flushed and looked away, hoping that it wasn’t too obvious. 

Sunny watched J.J.’s every move with a hard-eyed gaze. About an hour into their wait, her foot began steadily tapping against the floor. 

The relative calm broke around midday, when Skeletiano came in. 

He didn’t bother waiting for someone to open the door. He knocked once. Then, before Isabella could do more than look to the door, he opened it himself and came gliding in. 

He halted when he saw them sitting together on the sofa. “Princess!” he exclaimed. “Sunny! How delightful to find you here! I was just coming to make sure this rotting corpse—” Here, he shot what, judging by his tone, must have been a sour look at J.J., “—ate something before he fell apart completely.”

Isabella didn’t have a chance to respond. Sunny stood and advanced towards him with a hot glare.

“Er,” said Skeletiano, taking an uncertain step back. “Is there something wrong?”

“Weren’t you supposed to look after the Princess?” Sunny demanded. 

“Huh?” Skeletiano turned his eye sockets to Isabella in confusion. “What’s she talking about? What happened?”

Her stomach churned with guilt; somehow this was worse than telling J.J., if only because she knew that Skeletiano would take it harder. But if she didn’t tell him, Sunny would, and much less kindly. 

“Skeletiano? There’s something I didn’t tell you earlier. I...touched the water in Black Lake.”

Skeletiano’s reaction was immediate.

“What?!” His jaw dropped so low that his skull fell off; the rest of his body, frozen in shock, didn’t even move to catch it before it hit the ground. 

His skull rolled, coming to a stop before Isabella’s feet. There was a pause in the conversation as Isabella bent to pick the skull back up and handed it back to his body, which immediately set it back on its proper place.

Then he caught sight of her hand and yelped, “Your hand—!”

Isabella clutched her fingers in the fabric of her dress and nodded.

“When?! How?!”

“When you fell apart. One of your bones fell into the water and I grabbed it without thinking.”

“Oh, this _is_ all my fault!” Skeletiano wailed. “How can you ever forgive me?! If I hadn’t fallen apart— wait. I touched the water too! I’m disappearing! Why didn’t anyone say I’m disappearing?! The Princess and I are going to vanish together!”

Sunny’s voice went sharp. “There is nothing the matter with you. And the Princess is _not_ disappearing.”

“She’s right— you look just the same as ever,” Isabella added in her most reassuring voice. 

Their conversation managed to draw J.J. away from his work. In a voice alight with curiosity, he wondered, “Why haven’t you changed? The water should have had _some_ effect…”

“Maybe it just doesn’t work on worthless sacks of bones,” Sunny scoffed. 

“You!” Skeletiano pointed at J.J. “This is just as much as your fault as it is mine’s! More, even! If you hadn’t rocked the boat trying to catch your stupid sample, I would have never fallen apart, and the Princess would never have had to touch the water! And you don’t even care!”

J.J. looked faintly surprised. “Of course I care.”

Skeletiano deflated a bit at that. 

Quickly, before J.J. could ruin it by adding something about it being a good research opportunity (she knew that she and J.J. were friends, so it was possible that he had meant it like it sounded— but, well, he _did_ love his research an awful lot), Isabella jumped in with, “And my hand is still here! It’s...just different now.”

Not that she could see any difference, though the strange itching had faded a bit.

Skeletiano’s bones slumped with relief. 

So, of course J.J. had to ruin it. “It also does not seem to have spread since last measured. Though, if it is indeed a contagion of some sort, it could still be a slow-moving one…”

All of Skeletiano’s hard-won calm vanished with a shriek. “She _is_ going to vanish! All of that beautiful, freckled skin is going to turn into _nothing_ — she won’t even have her bones! And it’s all our fault!”

Sunny’s eyebrows shot up and even J.J. gave him a puzzled look. There was a long moment’s awkward silence, and Isabella looked between everyone in some confusion. Clearly, they were reacting to something Skeletiano had said— but what?

She tried to think about what he had said, but found that the exact words had already slipped away from her mind. Only his general sentiment remained— and she found nothing strange with it, though her stomach gave another twist of guilt. He’d been standard Skeletiano, worrying about her. 

“Freckles?” That was Sunny.

“The Princess has no noticeable melanin clusters on her skin,” added J.J.

A smoky question mark rose from Skeletiano’s pipe; he used his free arm to gesture at her. “Are you blind? Of course she does!”

They all turned to look at her. Isabella shifted her feet, suddenly feeling acutely like she was one of J.J.’s specimens on display.

“Definitely not,” said Sunny.

Skeletiano protested and it looked as though they were about to devolve into bickering when J.J., who’d been giving her a thoughtful, examining look, said, “Wait.”

Amazingly, both obeyed.

He turned to Sunny. “When you look at the Princess, what do you see?”

Sunny scowled. “Not freckles, obviously.”

“And?”

Now Sunny looked surprised. “Isn’t it obvious?” J.J. didn’t say anything, and, after a moment, she relented, her cheeks reddening. “She’s beautiful— everyone knows that.”

(Isabella blushed.)

“And how does that beauty appear? Her skin, for instance— what does it look like?”

“I don’t see how this has to do with anything right now. Her skin—” Sunny made a wordless gesture. “—it’s darker than mine; anyone could see that.”

“So you say,” said J.J. “Yet when I look at her, I find her complexion to be pale and flawless. It seems as though we all see something different.”

Sunny and Skeletiano both made identical noises of surprise.

Isabella looked back and forth between them. What were they talking about?

J.J. turned back to her. “Princess, could you tell us what you see when you look at yourself?”

Isabella looked down at her arms. She felt hot, nervous— confused. “I—I don’t know,” she said, and meant. And wasn’t that strange? She could describe the texture of Sunny’s skin in detail if she chose, praise the faint hint of freckles on her cheeks, so pale they could only be seen up-close, rhapsodize over the sharp contours of her eyes. But when she thought of herself— it was difficult to explain, somehow beyond conscious thought. She knew what she saw, but she had no words for it.

“Dark,” she said finally, knowing that it wasn’t quite right, but finding no other ways to describe it. She couldn’t quite look at anyone; she only watched J.J. from the corner of her eye.

He nodded, as though as she’d confirmed something, then strode back to his worktable. Before anyone realized what he intended, he leaned forward and plunged a finger into the flask of black water.

Too late, Skeletiano rushed forward, shrieking, “No, don’t!”

J.J. withdrew his finger from the flask. Skeletiano stuttered to a halt, and all three stared.

His finger was no longer blue. Instead, it was the color of flesh— human flesh.

“How—” Sunny didn’t seem able to finish her question. 

He examined the change closely, flexing his fingers. “It seems as though the facts fit the data. I’d wondered— but it seems that all the Black Lake’s water actually does is reveal what’s already there. The truth, so to speak. Hence, my dead flesh returning to what it actually should be— and, I believe, showing us how the Princess sees herself.” A pause. “I do wonder what it is that makes her appear so differently to all of us…”

His words sounded as though they were coming from far away. Isabella swallowed, but her mouth felt like dry cotton.

Skeletiano protested. “That doesn’t make any sense!”

But it _did_. She didn’t know why they all saw something different, or why she had never noticed that before , but the rest of it fit. Why she couldn’t see any change in herself at all— it was because for her, nothing _had_ changed. 

Had she been this way in life? She thought not, but she couldn’t remember living well enough to say. And if not— she’d known that not everyone held onto their original bodies in death. One had only to look at Skeletiano and J.J. and the other zombies and mummies to see that. 

But even then, those changes were _related_ to their deaths. Skeletiano’s body had burned in the same fire he’d died in— J.J.’s scientific mind couldn’t let go of the knowledge of the normal procession of the state of a corpse— so if she had only changed after death, then why? What about dying could have caused something like this?

If anyone could find out the answer, it was J.J.

But—

The sickening truth began to settle in, as she remembered the horror that had come over Sunny’s face— calm, unflappable Sunny— when she’d seen Isabella’s hand. Skeletiano’s shriek. That _nothing_ they couldn’t describe, that they were so overcome by— that was _her_ , that was what had always _been_ there. 

She stumbled back. J.J. and Skeletiano were caught up a discussion— or maybe an argument— over something she couldn’t hear over the roaring of her thoughts. They hadn’t noticed her backing away.

Her back hit the door. She turned the knob and escaped into the cool air outside.  


* * *

  
Outside the quiet was broken only by the muffled sound of Skeletiano inside the lab. The stars were bright and clear against the sky. As Isabella looked up, she found herself thinking of the shape she’d seen the fire-lights make the night before, like the opening of a bird’s beak, though she didn’t know why. 

She’d not taken more than a few steps forward when she heard the door open and close again from behind her. Sunny’s voice came echoing over to her. “Where are you going?”

“Oh!” said Isabella with a nervous laugh. She paused in her steps but didn’t turn around; she pressed her trembling hands together against the front of her dress. “Just— out for some fresh air.”

“Right.” Sunny didn’t sound convinced. Then: “I can’t hear myself think over those two idiots in there. Do you want to go somewhere else?”

That— was not what Isabella had been expecting. She turned and found Sunny looking at her, her eyes clear and intent and not horrified at all. She didn’t understand, not at all, but she knew that she felt warm. 

“Yes,” she said.  


* * *

  
They walked without purpose and in silence; eventually they found themselves on one of the walks in the castle’s gardens. Gnarled shrubs heavy with black leaves lined the sides of the walkway, tall enough for privacy and tall enough to obscure the way. At the tips of the branches bloomed small, deep violet flowers. 

They wandered on. Isabella couldn’t think of anything to say, though her chest filled to bursting with words, with questions. The silence felt heavy, full. She wanted to speak.

But it was Sunny that spoke. “Princess, is what he said bothering you? I could go beat some tact into him if you’d like.”

“What? No!” Isabella whirled around, her fingers burying themselves in the folds of her dress. Suddenly, Sunny’s calm reaction to J.J.’s words made horrifying sense. “That’s— I mean— I think he’s right.”

There was a surprised silence.

“I see,” Sunny said.

They continued on; again, neither spoke. Somehow, this silence felt worse than the last. Heavier, like she would choke on it. 

Finally, Sunny asked, “Does it bother you?”

Her words were utterly without inflection. Isabella looked sidelong at her, but she’d tipped her face to the sky. She couldn’t read Sunny’s expression at all.

Isabella didn’t answer right away. Did it bother her? She’d been this way at least as long as she’d been dead— and though she’d never realized that others didn’t see her as she did herself, she’d always known how she truly appeared. 

What upset her wasn’t what J.J. had said. It was the thought that her friends would turn away upon seeing who she truly was. 

“I just want to know why all of you always saw something else,” Isabella answered, finally. It wasn’t quite an answer to what Sunny had asked, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice her fears. Not to Sunny— calm, fearless Sunny. 

“I think it would be harder to get J.J. _not_ to find out why,” said Sunny dryly. “It sounded like he already had a book’s worth of theories about why nothing happened to Skeletiano.” She paused, and when she spoke again, it was with an added air of something Isabella couldn’t pin down at all. “At least we know now that you’re not somehow dying _again_.”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Isabella. Sure, Skeletiano had said something about them “vanishing”, but she’d assumed that was just him panicking. “Is that even possible?”

“I don’t know,” said Sunny. “I’ve heard rumors before, usually about things that happened long before I came here, but I never took them seriously.”

“Why not?”

Sunny snorted. “Because we’re _dead_. Sure, our bodies can be wounded, and we could fall apart if we’re not careful, but we’ve already hit the end of the line. This is it.”

As she spoke, she glanced again towards Isabella’s hand.

Isabella fought the urge to hide it again. She thought about asking, _is it spreading_ , but no— J.J. had made it clear that that wasn’t how the water worked— and besides, Sunny’s meaning had been clear. Their bodies were dead and did not age— but they did _change_. And while J.J.’s finger would probably start to rot again over time simply because of who he was, the broken illusion on Isabella’s hand was likely there to stay for the rest of eternity.

“Does it bother _you_?” 

She hadn’t meant to say that.

Sunny’s eyes went wide. “What?”

Isabella flushed in embarrassment, but it was too late to turn back now. She forged on. “It’s just, you were so horrified this morning when you saw it.”

“That’s when I thought you were—” Sunny cut herself off, blushing. “That is, it’s a little strange, but much stranger things happen in Niflheim all the time. As long as you— if it’s you—”

She cut herself off again with a cough. 

“As long as I’m—?” Isabella repeated.

Sunny blushed even more heavily. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh,” said Isabella, disappointed.

They continued on for a few paces more in silence.

Then Sunny stopped in her tracks. “No,” she said. “That was a lie. It’s not nothing.”

Isabella turned to look at her. “...Sunny?”

She didn’t answer. She just looked at Isabella, her cheeks flushed, her eyes warm. It was a look Isabella had seen many times before— but never aimed at her.

It was how Sunny used to look at Victor. 

“Oh,” said Isabella again. “ _Oh_.”

The distance between them disappeared before Isabella even made a conscious decision to move. She caught a glimpse of Sunny’s eyes, wide and blue, before reaching out and pulling her into a tight embrace.

She’d hugged Sunny before, of course, in greeting or in moments of excitement, but those had been brief moments. Warm and _friendly_ , and over almost as soon as they began. 

From the very first moment, this was different. She felt the shiver of Sunny’s breath on her neck, the trembling of her body. She was trembling too. She’d never been so nervous before.

“Princess…?” Sunny’s voice was low. 

“Isabella,” she murmured back. “Call me Isabella.”

Sunny shuddered deliciously in her arms. “ _Isabella_.”

That was when Isabella pulled back her head and kissed her. 

She didn’t know how long they stood there, exchanging long, sweet kisses. When they finally drew apart, Sunny looked at her, embarrassed but smiling. 

Isabella took Sunny’s hand in her own and they started walking again, this time following the winding path back towards the castle. Neither spoke, but it wasn’t like before. No more heaviness lay between them, and Sunny’s hand, cool and unflinching in hers, said more than any words could.

As they finally neared the entrance to the castle, Sunny spoke. 

“I was thinking,” she said. “About what you said, about wanting to know. And, I hate to say it, but I think we should ask the King.”

That, Isabella had not expected to hear. “His Majesty?”

Sunny made a sour face. “I know. He’s an idiot. But he’s been here longer than anyone—”

“And he is the reason I woke up here in the first place,” Isabella realized. She was used to thinking of Jean a silly, albeit good-hearted, man— but he _was_ the king of Niflheim. And it was he who had woken her from death’s long sleep.

Sunny nodded. “Exactly. He might know something— as hard as that might be to believe.”  


* * *

  
It took some searching to find him. The King didn’t make it easy on them. He wasn’t in the throne room, or in his chambers, or wandering any of the halls. The task was made yet more difficult by the need to be discreet as, technically, Sunny should have gotten back to work hours ago. But finally— after spotting Orlando and ducking into the nearest room to hide from him— they found Jean.

Also hiding from Orlando. In the same room.

Sunny scoffed. “Typical.”

“Don’t be so cold!” Jean protested. “Besides, you’re hiding from him too!”

“Be quiet!” Sunny hissed, glaring. “Do you want him to find us?”

Jean flinched. 

“Your Majesty, we were actually looking for you,” Isabella cut in, before the conversation could devolve any further. “I had a question for you.”

Jean lit up. “Ask away!” 

“It’s about this,” Isabella said, and extended her left hand. 

Jean went still, all frivolity vanishing from his expression. He looked at her hand, then looked at her, really looked at her, with the kind of solemn look she’d only rarely seen on him. 

“Ah,” he said, and in that sound was a world of understanding. “You know.”

Isabella swallowed, her heart suddenly pounding. She’d agreed with Sunny’s reasoning, and had thought that the idea had merit, but somehow, she hadn’t actually prepared herself for the possibility of actual answers. 

She asked, “Do you know _why_? Why everyone sees me differently?”

Jean was silent for a long moment. Then: “Yes.”

Isabella waited, her mouth dry. From the corner of her vision, she saw Sunny watching him too, her gaze intent.

“When you woke here, you became the Sun of Niflheim.” Jean shrugged, an easy movement at odds with the serious expression on his face. “You’re meant to bring light to the people of Niflheim— and what that means is different for each person. That’s why.”

“I see,” said Isabella, and meant it. 

Jean glanced to the window. “Any other questions?”

Sunny looked to Isabella, and she opened her mouth to say, _no_ , but hesitated. A thought occurred to her. “What do _you_ see when you look at me?”

At that, Jean smiled. “The same thing you do.”  


* * *

  
After that, life— or, more precisely, death— returned to its regular routines. Once the King’s revelations had been shared, J.J. returned to his research, Skeletiano and Sunny to their work, and Isabella to her lessons. (Although the days when Sunny came to tutor her now included a little bit less learning than they had before— or, arguably, learning of an entirely different sort.) 

The illusion on her hand remained broken. Once the people of Niflheim got past the initial rounds of shock and reassurances that everything was indeed alright, it quickly became just another part of her. Existence moved on.

A few days after Firelight Night, when heading for her regular afternoon tea with Sunny and Skeletiano, Isabella came across the Great Wizard in the halls of the castle. 

In lieu of a proper greeting, he said, “Oh, I see you’ve witnessed Firelight Night. _And_ you’ve been marked— that’s quite fortunate.”

Instinctively, she went to touch her hand. Then she realized he wasn’t looking at it at all, but at her forehead. 

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

The Great Wizard seemed amused. “Didn’t Skeletiano tell you about it? The meaning of the lights?”

“Tell me…?” So much had happened since then, that it took Isabella a moment to remember. “Oh! You mean how the forms they take are supposed to tell your fortune? But— I didn’t see anything.”

“Are you certain? Not even something like this?” As he spoke, he traced the shape she’d noticed the lights make in the air.

Isabella’s eyes went wide. “I did— but how did you know?”

The Great Wizard laughed and tapped her forehead. “I can see it here. Any magic-user could, if they knew to look.”

“But—” Isabella frowned. “How could that tell my fortune? It doesn’t show me anything— they’re just lines.”

“It’s not just lines,” he said. “It’s a rune. A symbol for something more.”

“What does it mean?”

“Many things. Transformation, regeneration, creation. And, in the reversed side—” He gave her hand a meaningful look. “—it is the breaking of illusions. It is fire and light, the perfect complement to our Sun.”

After a suitably dramatic pause, he tapped her forehead again. “Just something to consider.”

With that, he vanished, leaving Isabella alone in the hall. She stood there for a bit, thinking about what he had said.

Then she smiled, putting it out of her mind, and continued on down the hall.

After all, she had tea with her friends waiting for her. Perhaps later, they’d go to library, or maybe J.J.’s lab. And sometime soon, she would need to tell the King that she wouldn’t be marrying him— and after that, who knew?

She had all of eternity before her, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The rune Isabella sees is supposed to be "kenaz", the meaning of which I took from [this website](http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/meanings.html).
> 
> Many thanks to Merriman for the beta!


End file.
